Quote of the Day
“The same persons who cry down logic will generally warn you against Political Economy. It is unfeeling, they will tell you. It recognises unpleasant facts. For my part, the most unfeeling thing I know of is the law of gravitation: it breaks the neck of the best and the most amiable person without scruple, if he forgets for a moment to give heed to it. The wind and waves too are very unfeeling.
Would you advise those who go to sea to deny the wind and the waves – or to make use of them and to find the means of guarding against their dangers? My advice to you is to study the great writers on Political Economy, and hold firmly by whatever in them you find true; and depend upon it that if you are not selfish or hard-hearted already, Political Economy will not make you so.”
- John Stuart Mill, 1867
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Author
Brandon Dupont, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Economics at Western Washington University where he teaches economic history, the history of economic thought, microeconomics, labor economics and political economy. He has published on a variety of topics in American economic history and labor economics and is currently working on an undergraduate history of economic thought textbook.